What We Played #102: Driver: San Francisco, Virtue's Last Reward and Tomb Raider

The one that's full of embargoes.

Kris Lipscombe, 2 years ago, 36 comments.

Blimey, it’s Friday again. Despite this week feeling like it’s dragged a fair bit, Friday has somehow snuck up on me. Greg has yet to return from his sojourn, so you’re stuck with me guiding you through another week’s worth of gaming.

I’ll start things off by sharing what I’ve been doing this week, and for once I’ve been getting a bit of variety in my gaming. That variety comes via the wonderful service that is PlayStation Plus, and is in the form of inFamous 2, Driver: San Francisco and Machinarium.

Of the three, Driver: San Francisco is probably my favourite. While the jumping between cars mechanic seemed a little odd at first, it opens at some interesting possibilities when the police are chasing you. Rather than simply out running them, why not try and block them off with a lorry? It adds a puzzle like element to the game, and encourages experimentation, making for a fun experience overall.

There’s also a lot to like about Machinarium, although I think the Vita version that’s arriving next week might be better. The touch interface could really benefit it, assuming that’s the direction they go in.

As for inFamous 2, I’ve played a little bit of it but now it’s broken. For some reason the PlayStation Plus version refuses to download the latest patch, and will no longer let me into the game. If anyone’s got any advice I’d be very grateful.

To counter point my diversity, Dan has been applying a laser like focus to Soul Sacrifice on the Vita. While he’s been playing it, he can’t really say much about it due to the embargo. What a tease! All he’ll say is that it’s “very compelling, if not a tad difficult”.

Peter has similar embargo limitations. Although he’s been playing Grid 2 and Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon he can’t actually talk about them until next week. Instead he just gave me this string of emoticons, saying that people can draw their own conclusions: “:| :) :D :O >:( :D XD”. Make of them what you will.

Fortunately, Aran’s actually been playing some games he can talk about. First up is Virtue’s Last Reward, which he describes as “more of an interactive story than a standard game”. Apparently you spend most of your time “reading plot and dialogue before being presented with a puzzle.” Sounds thrilling! The biggest problem Aran had with the title was that it required multiple playthroughs to advance, at which point he decided he “could not be bothered… [and] deleted [it] from my Vita.”

His Vita does seem to have been getting some attention this week, as he’s also been playing Uncharted: Golden Abyss. He feels that it’s “as good as any Uncharted on the PS3″, although the graphics obviously don’t match up. He’s currently halfway through, and can feel the game building towards something, so I’m sure we’ll here more of Drake’s adventures next week.

Sticking with the adventuring motif, Tomb Raider‘s been getting some love from Aran as well, so much so that he’s declared it his GOTY so far. This week he’s been “going through areas to pick up treasures and complete challenges”, saying that the collectibles “offer a lot of depth and background to the story”.

Finally, he’s been spending time with Okami HD, although perhaps not enough of it. He’s currently ten hours into the game and feels “the end is nowhere in sight.” Although he finds the game’s voices annoying, he does say that it’s brilliant overall. Much like Uncharted, I feel we’ll hear more of it in coming weeks.

If you remember last week, Dom announced that his gaming time has been constricted by an ongoing house move. Currently his house is full of boxes, which is hardly the best environment to get some gaming in. However, he has managed to find a little time for Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate, as well as the odd go at Zen Pinball 2 and Kirby’s Dreamland.

He’s also squeezed a bit of Football Manager 2013 now and then. Unfortunately this means he’s been playing it while queueing for various things, and consequentially holds up the queue while a virtual game is taking place. I can’t imagine it’s a trait that’s making him popular.

Our other newbie, DanToo, has been spending a lot of time with Surgeon Simulator 2013, a game he called “outrageously funny”, even if it is “starting to lose its appeal”. He’s also been developing road rage while playing F1 2012, due to his hatred of the game’s online drivers. “They are so incompetent,” he complains, before going on to say that “Codemasters don’t do a good job either with their flawed penalty system.”

Much like Aran he’s been spending time with Tomb Raider, although only for about half an hour. The only opinion he’s formed so far is that “the quick time events were really not needed.” His week of frustration wasn’t eased when he took to Slender The Arrival, a game he described as not “scary anymore, just downright frustrating.” Hopefully next week he’ll find something he likes.

Finally we turn to Greg, who’s still away in Switzerland and Germany. Travelling back and forth between the two nations means he’s only had time to play a little Candy Crush Saga on his Nexus 7. However there is an upside to his time away:

On the bright side, I’ve been working down near Lucerne today and The Alps have looked absolutely spectacular in today’s bright sunlight after a cloudy couple of days so it’s not a bad place to be working even if you have no time for video games.

I’ve got to say, that does sound rather nice. Hopefully those beautiful views won’t keep him away from What We Played for longer than he intended.

I’ve defeated, Flamelurker,Old God, Pentrator and Fools Idol. Flamelurker was very easy once i figured out that the thief ring plus cloak and soul arrow was the way to kill him. Old God was just a puzzle. Pentrator,i died once but when i rescued Biorr, he was easy to kill due to Bior distracting him allowing me to soul arrow Penertrator to death. And Fools Idol was very easy. She only has 2 attacks. Soul Ray and casts runes on the floor that shock you and cause you to stay in one place for a few minutes. Had to kill her twice due to the dredgling bring her back to life. I attempted world 1-4 and kept getting my arse handed to me by the claymore red knight or the dragon. Gave up thus did world 3-1. Am currently on world 3-2. Have purchased flameball, firespray and soul ray. Oh and i’ve told the game to feck off plenty of times.

i havn’t played much PS3 this week actually…
i have downloaded a Nintendo DS emulator to my computer and started playing Pokémon Diamond! it’s so addictivly fun to play, and since i havn’t played this game i find it even more fun since i don’t know what is going to happen! only have one more pokémon to catch then i have cought all pokémon i want to catch! sat 2 hours yesterday just to catch one motherf****r!! damn hard to catch and it had to be a male since it evolves to a really cool Pokémon if it is a male…
damn! i must go back to the game now!! =D

I have delved deep into my gaming backlog this week starting with Pure, which I originally finished when it didn’t have trophies then rebought after the trophy patch was released but only played about half of the career. I got back into playing it after helping Forrest get some of the online trophies. I’m 1 trophy away from platinum now (just need to wait on Forrest unlocking the A rank engines and then I can get that done).
Staying with games from my backlog, I randomly decided to try to get the last 2 trophies that I was missing from The Shoot. Somehow I managed to do them relatively easily when before I had absolutely no luck. So with a time difference of 2 and a half years between 1st trophy and last I finally have the platinum.
Moving on to newer stuff, I continued on from my Guacamelee speed run (2h19m … which has dropped to 37th on the leader board) and went back to collect all the stuff I hadn’t bothered with and ended up with a 100% completion time of 3h40m32s which put me in 9th place on the leader board.
I also played through (and got 100% trophies on) Thomas Was Alone. A fantastic little game, not particularly difficult but utterly compelling. I’m playing through it again at the moment whilst listening to the developer commentary.
I’ve also been playing/watching Zero Escape: Virtue’s Last reward. Quite an odd game and with 22 different endings it will take a fair bit of play.

Oh yeah I knew there was something else …
@Kris – When Infamous asks you if you want to download the patch, just hit O to cancel it and it should let you play. It won’t let you access the UGC stuff, but if you’re just playing the story then that’s probably your best bet.

The only gaming Ive had this week is Virtue’s Last Reward on Vita. Becasue as Aran mentioned, its an interactive story rathen than an actual game, it has been perfect for work Technicall there is only on playthrough but it has multiple brachches of story based on your decisions. I’m closing in on all 22 endings now so i should platinum it this weekend :D

Thanks for the heads up on Virtues Last Reward, I was planning on giving it a shot but if it requires multiple playthroughs and is lengthy then I don’t have time to bother.

Personally, I’ve been playing Twilight Princess and Donkey Kong Country Returns on the Wii as Im catching up on a lot of missed Nintendo titles. This is further strengthening my opinion that graphic fidelity is overrated as these games are beautiful.

Finished Dead Space 3, which was great. Finished Aliens Colonial Marines, which wasn’t. Started Goldeneye Reloaded, which has been surprisingly ok. Gave Journey another shot, but really don’t know what I’m supposed to be doing?!

Just Rage for me, after initially finding it a bit ordinary for the 1st hour or so, stuck with it, glad I did. 11 hours in and loving it. Bit like a cross between Fallout and COD, more shooter than rpg tho. Actually, there’s no rpg, it’s all shooter;p

First half of the week was all world of tanks ,trying to get loads of XP for parts for my KV1s and then read your review of Thomas was alone and I have to agree its a visually simple game but so rewarding . Think I will complete on vita and then complete again on ps3 with dev commentary.

TSA Meets

None today

thesixthaxis - an oscar mike media joint

We do not license content or design to any other site.
This WordPress theme is the legal property of Oscar Mike Media.
No element of this site can be used without written permission.
All content should be considered opinion.
Article posters are the individual owner of the article content.
We are not affiliated with any third party.